“There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting;
It’s luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder,
It’s the forests where silence has lease;
It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.”

~ Robert W. Service, The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses

With the holidays over, the Art Fusion Galleries Gala Reception and mini vacation in Miami now behind me, and mostly caught up from the time away, it’s time now to finally get my Canada Legacy painting series underway.

I’ve decided to begin with the parts of Canada that I know the least about… the North.

This week I’ve been virtually exploring the Yukon Territory, and oh my… my oh my… the breathtaking beauty has captured my heart in ways I definitely did not expect. How I wish that I could be there in person, with my feet on the ground, taking everything in from wilderness and wildness to culture.

A land where once the whooly mammoth, mastadon’s, camel’s, scimitar cats, roamed the plains with bears, Yukon horses and other animals.

A land where the first people migrated from Asia near the end of the ice age, some 15,000 years ago, by crossing the Bering Land Bridge, a mass of land that connected the continents and later submerged in water.

“Ancestors of Yukon’s First Nations likely arrived early in the Holocene in a subsequent migration out of Northeast Asia. They are part of what is known as the Dene or Athapaskan language speakers of Alaska and Yukon. Throughout the ensuing 10,000 years these early Yukoners colonized the entire territory and developed lifestyles and cultures dependent on an evolving resource base. Bison, caribou, salmon and moose were all critical food sources at different points in time and all contributed to the diverse and vibrant cultures of Yukon First Nations today.” ~ Yukon Beringia Interpretative Centre

Yes, I’ve been researching Yukon’s history, learning about its landmarks, special moments such as the gold rush, arts and culture, First Nation’s peoples and the government and its status of treaties with these nations. This project… and this territory has become fascinating to me.

Watching videos, listening to music… all these things are informing me.

This project began with an intention to contribute energy into the world, but as I move more and more into it, I am reminded that one of the things that was a part of me from when I was a little girl, was to go into the stillness, the silence and to intuit, sense, feel, breathe and to know the energy of something.

The sun, the moon, the stars, the land; the rivers and creeks I walked and listened to, the lakes and oceans I would swim in or watch the ripples and tides, the trees and leaves that whisper in their steadfast presence… everything would connect and fill me somehow.

And, even though I am connecting virtually across Canada’s nation, and beyond in the future, I can tap into the grids of the world, of Mother Nature… and listen, feel, sense and intuit… then paint and write the impressions that come.

So, now it seems to me that it is not I that is and will contributing the energy, but simply being an interpreter… bringing forth the beauty, power, wisdom, love and grace of the LAND-SEA-SKY.

Mmmmm… much to experience and this excites me.

It’s time to choose the panel, connect with it, prime it and prepare… for the appearance of the Yukon piece. Wish me luck!

Kiernan